Not only does the exhibition "Beuys and Beyond—Teaching as Art" shed light on one of the most exciting chapters of West German art. The show, which tours through seven major Latin American museums, also forges new paths. Works from the Deutsche Bank Collection are juxtaposed with works by native artists in each guest museum. After being shown in Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Monterrey, the exhibition is now on view in Bogota.

Furniture, plywood, car tires – Danilo Dueñas finds many of the materials he uses for his sculptures and installations on the street. The Colombian artist combines them into abstract compositions which seem at first glance to be the product of happenstance. In reality, they are the result of intensive reflection on their material and formal qualities. Their placement in the exhibition space is also of key importance to the artist (who was born in 1956), because the interplay with other works and the architecture gives rise to ever-new meanings. By reflecting the development of abstraction and Duchamp’s concept of objet trouvé, he combines the two most important tendencies of 20th-century art in his oeuvre.

Dueñas’ object Piano Herido (2009) consists of a fallen-over piano lying on a felt blanket. It is a simple yet subtle kind of sabotage that gives the instrument an astonishing sculptural quality. At the same time, this work can be viewed as an homage to Joseph Beuys’ famous Fluxus grand piano. Like the German artist, Dueñas is also a mentor for a younger generation of artists. Since 1990, he has taught art at various universities, including Los Andes University, the National University of Colombia and Jorge Tadeo Lozano Univerity. Their undogmatic way of teaching and support of an exchange of ideas and concepts connects these two artists.

For the current show at the Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, curators Sylvia Juliana Suárez Seguraaand Maria Wills Londoño chose works by Danilo Dueñas and five of his most important students – Rosario López Parra, Lucas Ospina Villalba, François Bucher, Bernardo Ortiz and Luisa Ungar. The spectrum of works on exhibit ranges from Ospina’s bizarre erotic aquarelles to François Bucher’s series Ready-Mades With A Fold. For his "photo sculptures", he rolled up individual pages of international glossy magazines, producing three-dimensional collages in which diverse images collide: opulent pearl necklaces from a fashion line correspond to cartridge belts in pictures from a report on a crisis area. At once simple and effective, the work perfectly implements Dueña’s plea to his students: work with what is there.